Attachment for looms



July 21, I925. 1,546728 J. GREGSON ATTACHMENT FOR LOOMS Filed April 15, 1925 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 ATTORNEY Patented July 21, 1925.

JAMES GREGSON, 0 F GLASON POINT, NEW YORK.

ATTACHMENT FOR LOOlVIS.

Application filed April 15, 1925. Serial No. 23,202.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that 1, James GRnesoN, a subject of the King of Great Britain, residing at Glason Point, borough and county of Bronx, Stateof New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Attachments for Looms, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates generally to looms having what are known as dobby heads and more specifically is designed for improving the certainty of operation of such looms particularly when being used to weave cloth having a plain or taffeta. construction.

In looms of this type certain of the harness frames are moved to form the shed at each flight of the shuttle by means of hooks connected to said frames by any convenient mechanism, said hooks being, adapted to engage a constantly reciprocate member usually called the knife. A controlling member usually in the form of a rotating drum carrying radially projecting pegs, or a chain carrying outwardly PI'OJGGtlHg pegs forming a pattern surface either lifts any particular hook, through connections ac: tuated by said pegs, so that it will not engage the knife during the outward stroke of the latter and so leaves the harness frame connected to said hook motionless, or permits said hook to drop into engagement with said knife and thereby cause it to move out with the knife and move such harness frame so that its particular warp thread will form its desired part of the shed during that particular flight of'the shuttle.

When such a loom is set up to produce certain kinds of fabric such, for instance, as one having a plain or taffetaconstruction in whole or in part, certain of said hooks must engage the cooperating knife at every reciprocation thereof, and, if for any reason. one or more of such hooks fails to do this or becomes disengaged from the knife, it may repeat such failure more or less continuously throughout the weaving, thereby causing the loom to produce a fabric having a more or less continuous defect. The obvious result of such failure is a waste product and a total loss of the laborv and materials consumed in its manufacture.

My invention overcomes this ditliculty by positively ensuring and maintaining the engagement with the knife of such hook required to make repeated engagement therewith. This is done by means of an overhead finger or similar device which, when in operat ve position, will not permit said hook to rlse and so free itself from engagement with the knife.

The best form of apparatus at present known tome, embodying my invention, is

lllllStlELllGCl in the accompanying sheet of drawings, in which,

Fig. 1 is a section on a vertical plane of one form of dobby head with my invention applied thereto, the section being taken on line l l of Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 is a front elevation of said dobby head, parts being broken away.

Fig. 8 is a detail perspective view of my attachment with parts broken away and,

Fig.4 is a cross section of the same on line %4 of Fig. 3.-

Throughout the drawings like reference characters indicate like parts. 1 is the frame of the dobby head which has two horizontal members provided with slots 2, 2 serving as guides for the reciprocation in a horizontal plane of two constantly reciprocatin g members 3, 3 usually called the knives. These knives are reciprocatedby mechanism not shown. l, P are sets of hooks, pivoted one set over each knife, adapted when in lowered position as shown at 4 to engage said knives or to be free from such engagement as shown at 4i, 4-. Each pair of hooks, comprising an upper hook d and a lower hook l, are pivoted at 5, 5 to a lever 6, which in its turn is pivoted at 7 to one of a series of arms 8, 8, each of which arms is pivoted at its lower end at 9 to the frame 1, while its upper end is adapted to be connected to a frame of the loom harness by a wire 10 or other suitable device.

11 is a pattern cylinder having removable pegs 12 cooperating with a series of levers 13, 13 pivoted to the frame at 19. The rear ends of these levers are loosely connected by links 1 1, 148 to the hooks 4, 4. As shown, the loose connection is at the upper end of each link 1 1, 145, and is in the form of a slotted fork 15, 15, the fork embracing the hook and the slots in the fork embracing the pins 16, 16 on the hooks. .The hooks are guided in their lifting motion by grids 17, 17 and the levers 13, 13 are guided by a grid 18.

The, foregoing described apparatus constitutes no part of my invention but merely illustrates one of a number of slightly varying forms of dobby heads to which my 111- vention may be applied.

In the ordinary operation of such a device the knives 8, S are constantly and usually alternately reciprocated out and back again along the slots 2, 2 at each cycle of the weaving operation and the pattern cylinden, 11 rotates continuously, the pegs 12 being so set in the cylinder or removed therefrom that certain of the levers 13, 13 will either be lifted by the operation of its corresponding peg and the connected hook 4 or i either be allowed to drop down into engagement with its cooperating knife or a, or, if a peg cooperating with any lever 13, 13 is removed, said lever will not be lifted and its corresponding hook will be held by the link 111- or 1 1 in elevated posi tion so that it will not engage its cooperating knife. As a result, the hook or hooks which are dropped into engagement with a knife are pulled to the left as shown at i by the outward stroke of the knife which they engage, thereby vibrating the connected lever 8 to the left and moving the harness frame (not shown) to which it is connected so that the warp threads passing through said connected harness frame are moved into positions to form their proper portions of the shed, while those levers 8 which are connected to hooks, as 4, not engaged by either of the knives will not be vibrated during that cycle of the weaving operation and the harness frame connected thereto will not be moved.

When such a dobby head is to be used in weaving a piece-of fabric having a plain on taffeta construction throughout, or in longitudinal stripes, certain of the hooks 4:, 1 must engage their cooperating knife or knives at each cycle of loom operation. This means that at every cycle of the weaving operation pegs 12 must come under the levers 13 or 13 actuating these hooks and, by lifting said levers, allow said hooks to drop into engagement with the knives l, P. It sometimes happens that one or more of these hooks may fail to completely engage the knives and slip oif the same, or that some of the pegs fall out or get twisted out of line with levers 18, 18 and so fail to permit hooks to drop into engagement with a knife, and thereby cause a fault in the Weave and when such a failure occurs it is quite apt to be repeated so that an entire piece of cloth may be rendered unmarketable.

My present invention is designed to overcome this diiiiculty and consists in the provision of a series of adjustable fingers 20 which may be placed over any of the hooks and which will then hold them down in positive engagement with the knives throughout the entire weaving operation. In the particular construction or embodiment of my invention illustrated, the lingers 20 are threaded into a cross bar 21 which has perforations 24 with screw threads cut therein. These fingers may be raised or lowered individually by screwing them up or down in the cross bar and, after any proper adjustment, may be locked in position by lock nuts 22. The cross bar 21 is supported at either end on short swinging arms 25, 25, pivoted at 26 on braclets 23 carried by the frame 1 of the dobby head. A removable pin 27' when inserted in the bracket 23 over one of the swinging arms 25 as shown in Fig. 3 holds the cross bar and fingers down in operative position. ii henever the loom is being used tor weaving fabrics not having any plain or taffeta construction all the fingers may be swung up out of operative relation with the hoo {S by removing said pin 27, and thereafter held in such upper position by reinserting the pin under the arm 25 as shown in Fig. 4:.

\Vhen the fingers are in operative position over certain of the hooks as shown in Fig. 3, said hooks are positively held down, and their corresponding levers 13 are held in elevated position free from the pattern roll or chain throughout the weaving operation, instead of being continuously raised and lowered by their corresponding pegs 12, as is the case when my invention is not used. The other levers 13 are free to rise or fall asthe. pegs in the platen roll may cooperate- With them, and correspondingly lower or raise their connected hooks as the pattern may require.

Any of the fingers 20 over hooks which are not to be held down continuously may be screwed upward clear of enga 'ement with the hooks shown at 20 in Fig. 1, or may be removed from the cross bar 21.

While the main purpose of my invention as above explained is to make thos hooks which are to operate the harness continually at every other pick of the loom throughout the whole weaving process stay in positive engagement with their respective knives, secondary advantages result from the fact that this makes it unnecessary to set any pegs in the pattern cylinder or chain for such hooks. This saves a lot of time and labor in setting up the loom, saves pegs, minimizes the wear and tear on the hooks and their operating connections, and reduces the amount of power required to run the loom.

Havingdescribed my invention, I claim:

1. In a loom comprising a constantly reciprocating member serving as the actuating means for moving the harness to form the shed, a series of hooks pivoted over said member, a connection from each of said hooks to one frame of said harness whereby such connected frame may be lifted at any cycle of loom operation by reciprocation of said member when the same is engaged by the corresponding hook, and means for lifting selected hooks from engagement with maid reciprocating member during certain cycles of loom operation, the combination, with said above recited apparatus, of a series of normally stationary adjustable fingers mounted on the loom frame, one over each of said hooks, and adapted, when any one of them is in lowered position, to hold the hook beneath it in positive engagement with the said reciprocating member throughout the weaving of a given piece of fabric,'whereby the production of a perfect .5 plain or taffeta construction is ensured in the woven fabric.

2. An apparatus such as set forth in claim 1 combined with means for moving all of said fingers out of engagement with said hooks.

3. A combination such as set forth in claim 1 in which all of said fingers are mounted on a rotatable shaft, whereby partial rotation of said shaft will remove all of said fingers from engagement with said hooks.

1. An apparatus such as set forth in claim 1 combined with a rotatable shaft on which all of said fingers are mounted, and a sliding pin adapted to hold said fingers either in the lowered or the raised positions produced by partial rotations of said shaft.

5. In a loom comprising a constantly reciprocating member serving as the actuating means for moving the harness to form the shed, a series of hooks pivoteu over said member, a connection from each of said hooks to one frame of said harness whereby such connected frame may be lifted at any cycle of loom operation by reciprocation of said member when the same is engaged by the corresponding hook, and means for lifting selected hooks from engagement with said reciprocating member during certain cycles of loom operation, the combination, with said above recited apparatus, of selective means for positively maintaining the engagement of certain of said hooks with said reciprocating member, whereby the production of a perfect plain or taffeta con struction is ensured in the woven fabric.

JAMES GREGSON. 

